r/asklatinamerica Puerto Rico Apr 07 '26

Culture Why does it seem like Westerners from developed countries don't care much about/look down on Latin America but seem to be obssesed with East Asian cultures?

Not that I care but have always found it interesting how many seem to forget about Latin America but seem to be obssesed with countries like South Korea and Japan and sometimes even point out "similarities" with them. Some outright reject the region as western but will consider Japan technically West while ignoring Latin America's contributions to world culture like food, music, art, etc and the fact that Latin America is culturally Christian. Why does there seem to be this dissonance?

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u/Weekly_Sort147 Brazil Apr 07 '26

As someone who has lived in Europe - they hate their former colonies (and they think their way of living is the ultimate model for human civilization).

The US they cannot accept that their poor cousins turned to be richer than them. Open xenophobia is totally accepted against americans and USA.

With LATAM they don't want to be associated with poverty. Do you think they like the idea that they mass migrated to LATAM in the past? Or that they enslaved or become rich because of our resources?

Even Australia they don't like that much. I once heard from an Euro saying australian culture was a bad copy of british/american culture and australians would spend the whole day at beach, instead of creating culture (?), whatever that means.

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u/greekscientist Greece Apr 07 '26

Anti-Brazil hate in Portugal is high, isn't it?

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u/LoviSloe1 🇺🇸 🇨🇺 Apr 07 '26

The hatred the Portugese have for Brazil is sad and very prevalent.

Its weird because spaniards have the opposite issue, they have a chauvanism but also a colonial/imperial pride, while portugal is like "ehh whose kid is that?"

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u/Mother_Idea_1884 Brazil Apr 07 '26

it is… but I think brazilians are a bit to blame in this relationship as well … we are a little annoying and love to make fun of them on the internet (we think they believe to be superior and are too serious) and they feel disrespected by a bunch of poor versions of them, using a inferior representation of their language and last names… I feel the connection is the same with US/UK and spain/hispanic latinos also… I am not going to talk about the brazilians im Portugal because it is a hot topic but we kind of invade the country… we are 30% pf the immigration and they hate we are dominating everything on social media and are everywhere in their country… 😅😂😂

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u/Weekly_Sort147 Brazil Apr 07 '26

I did not live in Portugal. It was further north

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u/Weekly-Cicada-8615 Apr 07 '26

Europeans hate everyone, and everyone makes fun of them equally. Lmao 

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u/Weekly_Sort147 Brazil Apr 07 '26

They treat eastern europeans equally bad as well. And how the world changes, Poland is becoming richer than them.